Senior plays RB/safety for Richlands

Published: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 11:00 AM.

“I’ve killed a bunch of deer. I killed two bucks in one day,” Horne said. “One was a big eight-pointer and the other was a seven-pointer. I duck hunt a lot, too.”

Richlands first-year coach Justin Snider likes Horne not just because he’s a good player but also because he is a country boy, which comes with being a hunter.

“Ethan is about as country as you can come across and I love those kinds of kids,” said Snider, a rodeo rider who was born and raised in
Texas
but attended high school and college in
Oklahoma
. “That’s all I know and so Ethan and I have always hit it off because we have such common roots.”

Like his other sports, Horne has a game plan when hunting with his friends and family.

In football he prepares differently depending on the play, and in baseball he changes his approach at the plate depending on the pitcher. But in the woods Horne uses a different approach depending on what he’s tracking.

“For deer hunting, it depends on (the situation),” said Horne, noting that he does most of his hunting in the
Back
Swamp
area of Richlands. “I use a rifle mostly for dog hunting, but for duck hunting I use a shotgun.”

Regardless of what Horne uses or what he shoots, he gets something out of being a hunter.

RICHLANDS — Ethan Horne has played football and baseball since he was 5 years old.

But when asked which sport he likes the best, the Richlands High senior couldn’t come up with a reply, although football is on Horne’s mind these days as the running back and safety prepares for the first official day of practice Aug. 1 and for the Wildcats’ season opener Aug. 23 at East Duplin.

Still, football and baseball aren’t the only things the 17-year-old Horne enjoys when not attending classes. He is also an avid hunter and fisherman, the former being more of his hobby in the great outdoors away from football and baseball.

“Hunting and fishing, I’ve grown up doing those a lot,” Horne said. “My dad used to carry me (on outdoor trips) when I was still in diapers. I’ve just grown up hunting and fishing.”

Watch Horne play football and baseball and you see an outdoors-like ruggedness about him as an athlete. And the scrappy 5-foot-7, 180-pounder has emerged as a key player for the football team and was one of the Wildcats’ best baseball players last spring.

Horne made the first team of The Daily News all-area baseball as an outfielder after he hit .424 to lead Richlands to its first playoff appearance in eight years.

But Horne is also skilled in the woods, where there is nothing but silence and it’s just man against nature — and he’s shot his fair share of game.

“I’ve killed a bunch of deer. I killed two bucks in one day,” Horne said. “One was a big eight-pointer and the other was a seven-pointer. I duck hunt a lot, too.”

Richlands first-year coach Justin Snider likes Horne not just because he’s a good player but also because he is a country boy, which comes with being a hunter.

“Ethan is about as country as you can come across and I love those kinds of kids,” said Snider, a rodeo rider who was born and raised in Texas but attended high school and college in Oklahoma. “That’s all I know and so Ethan and I have always hit it off because we have such common roots.”

Like his other sports, Horne has a game plan when hunting with his friends and family.

In football he prepares differently depending on the play, and in baseball he changes his approach at the plate depending on the pitcher. But in the woods Horne uses a different approach depending on what he’s tracking.

“For deer hunting, it depends on (the situation),” said Horne, noting that he does most of his hunting in the BackSwamp area of Richlands. “I use a rifle mostly for dog hunting, but for duck hunting I use a shotgun.”

Regardless of what Horne uses or what he shoots, he gets something out of being a hunter.

“It’s a lot of fun to me,” he said. “I just go out and enjoy it. It gets my mind off of things.”

For now, however, Horne’s attention is on football.

Not only does he want to help the Wildcats to a better mark than last year’s 3-8 record, he also wants to rush for more than 1,000 yards and lead the team in tackles. Last year he rushed for 537 yards and six touchdowns on 110 carries, averaging 4.8 yards.

“I probably like running back better,” Horne said. There’s just something about carrying the ball. We will run a lot of the I-formation this year. I’m happy being a running back and I just do whatever I can to get the most yards in a carry.”

Horne certainly got the most of a situation two years ago as a sophomore. Having been a quarterback on junior varsity as a freshman in 2010, Horne was named the varsity team’s starting signal-caller early in his sophomore season after senior Tank Norman went down with a concussion.

Horne finished his sophomore year with 370 yards rushing and two touchdowns while going 3-0 as the Wildcats’ quarterback.

“It was a good experience for me as a sophomore to jump in behind Tank,” Horne said. “In flag football I played running back but then later on in rec I started playing quarterback and then at Trexler (Middle School) I played quarterback. But when I got to high school, I just started playing running back.”

Horne’s tenure at Richlands seems to have gone full circle. As a sophomore, he was a skinny and nervous player not knowing what to expect as a starter under the Friday night lights.

Now as a senior, he’s bulked up and full of confidence, although he’s not cocky.

“I feel like I’ve matured a lot as a football player,” Horne said. “I’ve gotten a lot stronger and I know the game better than I did. I want to lead the team and I want to lead by example so that the younger players can look back and maybe do the same.”

And so far Horne has shown Snider that he is willing to be a leader.

“He is such a talented young man who has an extraordinary work ethic,” Snider said. “If we ask him to go play guard, he will go play guard and not have any questions about it. He’s the kid everybody looks to and he is willing to take the burden on his shoulders and lead the troops.